


True Sight

by paradiamond



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Faries, Gen, Not the fun ones either.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-27
Updated: 2014-12-31
Packaged: 2017-12-06 17:28:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/738244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paradiamond/pseuds/paradiamond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daryl knows that Faries don't exist. Which would be good enough for him, except that they just won't leave him alone, not even after the world goes to shit. </p><p>Fact of the matter is Daryl has the True Sight, always has, and someone else in camp does too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Before

Daryl has been able to see them for as long as he can remember. His _imaginary friends_ , as Merle used to call them with a malicious grin before Daryl realized that something was strange and stopped talking. 

The ones in the woods that sometimes loved him, sometimes hurt him. Pain running up his legs from a jump they knew he couldn’t make, a hard fall onto the back of a river monster, a bite from a mermaid. But he learns early on that running with the monsters in the woods is better than trying to live with the ones at home. Sharp small teeth don’t sting as much as a belt, and being treated like a pet is better than being watched by vacant eyes. 

Stoneheart, Pantaminone, Moot. They’re his family, his real family of odd shapes and sizes. He’s a changeling, a faire child switched at birth for a lark, even if they tell him he isn’t, laughter lacing their voices. He knows. He can tell. He can see where he really belongs. 

“The fey can’t lie, Daryl Dixon,” Pan says, smiling as he wraps his tongue around his full name like it’s a treat. But who says they wouldn’t lie about that too? 

His teacher slaps him across the face for speaking in rhyme. He brings the letter she sends back with him to Moot instead, who turns it into a poem and then makes the words dance on the page.

“Why even go to school? You’ll learn so much more with us,” Stoneheart says, perched on his shoulder, watching Moot, a stocky girl with cat’s eyes and bigger than them both, dance around the legs of a giant. 

Daryl just shrugs, letting Stoneheart whisper magic, glamour they call it, into his ear and give him dreams. 

They scratch his face with thorns on their fingers, soothe the pain with kisses. Feed him berries better than anything he’s ever tasted, and braid leaves into his hair that his father rips out, tearing hair and skin sometimes. Saying things like, ‘queer’ and ‘no son of mine’. 

Which is fine, because he’s right, Daryl isn’t his son. He’s of the fey. So at ten Daryl doesn’t mind it so much anymore. Merle is long gone, his mother is a pile of ashes somewhere, and there’s a troll living in his house. Well Daryl fought with the troll under the bridge last week and lived, so he can handle it here. 

He crawls out of the window when they call him that night, and goes back into the woods saying, "Teach me something.” 

So he learns the forest, and forgets the metal and smoke and belts. He’s missing for ages. 

Later though, as he gets older and less kind, the ‘real’ world actually does become real, and they fade away from him. Shapes in the darkness, hints of wings in the trees, a voice at his ear, that’s all they become in the end. Just a distant part of the woods, as inaccessible to him as the games played on the playground used to be. 

Sometimes he wonders if he ever knew them at all. Eventually decides that if he did, it’s not like it matters. They’re gone now. More than likely they were all in his head, an escape from the shit hole that was the Dixon household. What kid wouldn’t make up an entirely new family, create magic for himself? Apparently it happens all the time. Coping mechanisms, Daryl had read about them at the library trying to avoid going back home. At fifteen his father dies and Daryl puts it all out of his mind. 

***

He’s twenty when he see’s the fiery dog and the sudden sight hits him like an electrical shock, calling up images he’d long thought buried. He’ll take it to his grave, but he booked it out of there, ran home like a little bitch. Later he tells himself it was a chupacabra, like that makes any more sense than what it would have been ten years ago. Merle’s back with a vengeance, but Daryl doesn’t really know him anymore. He’s starting to think he doesn’t know anything at all. 

He has a few friends at the garage, and a few at the bar, but they’re just dull shadows. Empty Puppet People, his imaginary friend Pan would say, if he’d even existed in the first place. 

Looking back, Daryl can’t really say what he used to do in the woods. There are entirely blank days, and others that seem to stretch forever in his memory. But he can’t have spent a week at a party under a tree, and he can’t have learned to fight wrestling with girls made from vines. It's not possible. 

_Children have active imaginations_ , his mother used to say, before she burned to death in her bed. But her eyes used to trail after him when she thought he wasn’t paying attention, worry creasing her face. 

Sometimes he wonders if she knew. 

“Lost in there baby brother?” Merle’s voice cuts into his thoughts easily- like a crystal knife slicing the skin of a unicorn. And Daryl shouldn’t know what that looks like. 

He shrugs it off, brought back to reality. “Jus’ thinking.” 

“Well cut it out, yer’ on a hunt,” Merle says, giving him what he probably intends to be a friendly shove. Daryl pushes back for show, but lets it drop, training his eyes carefully ahead. Merle’s right anyway, he should be paying attention. 

“Saw some weird shit up here the other day,” he comments mildly, watching his brother’s reaction from the corner of his eye. 

“That right?”

“Yeah. Big ol’ thing. Like a dog but...not.”

Merle glances over at him, frowning. “Well what else would it be?”

Daryl shrugs. “Dunno. Looked like what you hear about them chupacabras.”

Merle turns to stare, with something Daryl doesn’t know in his eyes. “Figure yer’ wrong about that one baby brother,” he says, slowly. 

Daryl looks away. “Well I saw somethin’.”

Merle laughs, the sound of it off, harsh. “Don’ go going off the deep end on me now. Don’ need another one of them in my life.” 

“What?” Daryl honestly doesn’t know what he’s talking about. 

“Her. You know, seein’ shit, fallin’ apart like that...” 

Daryl stops, feeling like he’d been actually frozen. Paralyzed. _Her_.

Merle had to be talking about their mother, except that he never, _never_ did. None of them did, it was just a rule that Merle uncharacteristically took to heart and Daryl followed out of something like fear, or habit. 

He makes his feet move, letting Merle lead him deeper and deeper into the trees. Talking was long over now, but that just gives Daryl time to think.

Maybe she had seen them too.

The fact that Daryl Dixon thinks he saw a chupacabra in the woods of _Georgia_ gets out, probably because Merle is incapable of keeping his mouth shut when drunk, and Daryl can’t do anything to stop it, so he owns it. Changes the story a bit and retells it to the guys at the bar so they can all get a kick out of it. 

They clap him on the back and give him hell for fun, and he keeps the expression on his face steady, thinking, _if only they knew._

***

Life with Merle is actually pretty easy. All he has to do is not set him off, and they get along just fine. Every now and then he catches Merle staring at him when he thinks he isn’t looking, something strange in his eyes, but Daryl just makes like he doesn’t see. There’s a lot of pretending in their house, but then, Daryl thinks that maybe there always has been. 

The woods continue to be his place. He and Merle go hunting there, stay out for days, but it’s not his home like it is Daryl’s. Merle belongs around other people too much. 

Then one day a couple of years after seeing the chupacabra Daryl is out, just tracking for practice, and he hears a child’s scream. He jumps, whirling around and trying to locate its source. He hears it again a few seconds later, except this time it’s laughter. 

Daryl lets it lead him over to a ridge and peers over the edge, unable to explain why the hair on his arms is standing straight up and his heart is pounding. It’s just a kid and her...dad? He can’t tell nearly anything about the taller person, hunched over and playing with the girl’s hair. He squints, trying to decide why they’re so far out in the woods when suddenly the tall one looks straight up at him, eyes glinting. 

Daryl stumbles back, taken off guard. The man has two curved horns growing out of his head and wrapping down around his ears. Which shouldn’t happen. Doesn’t happen. 

The girl turns, her curious gaze aimed right at Daryl. She flinches back and Daryl sees that she has a black eye. Something hot rises up in him and he scrambles down the side of the ridge, the man watching him with amusement. 

“Well now,” he says, voice deep and dark when Daryl makes it down, his chest heaving. “Come to play? We take all the damaged ones.” The little girl giggles, suddenly not afraid anymore. Daryl looks at her, taking in her bruised face and dirty clothes. 

“I took her from the monsters under the bed,” the man says, grinning. Daryl looks up and sees that he has too many tiny, sharp teeth. The man- or monster reaches over and lays the hand that isn’t on the girl’s shoulder on Daryl’s face. Daryl just looks at him, transfixed, distantly aware that something is wrong with him, that he shouldn’t be reacting like this. 

“He has the true sight, can you see?” he whispers, conspiratorially. The little girl nods, smiling up at him. “Maybe we should put out his eyes.” 

Daryl smiles back, his mind caught in a fog. _True sight?_

It’s the last clear thought he can remember for a while after that, and then he’s waking up face down in the dirt. He groans, pushing himself up. “What the hell-” Everything hurts, like he’d fallen from a height right onto his front. 

There are curved marks scored deep into his skin of his arms, like he’d been grabbed a couple of times by things with claws. Images flash through his mind and he looks away, trying to get his bearings. It’s dark now, so he must have been out for hours. 

“Goddam it.” 

It takes hours to find his way home, totally disoriented and somehow miles from where he expected to be. He makes it back in the dead of night, thinking of nothing but food, which is weird since he doesn’t usually get this hungry.

He lets the screen door slam closed, and Merle jerks awake from where he’s sleeping on the couch. Daryl frowns, eyeing him. He’d just gotten out of a longer than usual stint in the county lockup two weeks ago and Daryl isn’t readjusted to his presence yet. He nods at him though, figuring Merle must have passed out there, and makes a beeline for the kitchen. 

They’re set for food with all the hunting and extra hours at the garage he’d been putting in recently, and Daryl starts pulling stuff out, glancing up when Merle enters the room. He looks like shit, which honestly isn’t that unusual anymore. 

“Hey,” Daryl says, preoccupied. 

Merle gives him a look. “Hey?” He laughs. “Not even a sorry I took off for a week and didn’t say anything? Alright lil’ brother.” 

Daryl freezes, not sure he’d heard right. _A week._ He glances us to see Merle watching him, frowning and eyeing the scratches on his arms. Daryl doesn’t know what to say, and he can’t keep it off his face. The silence stretches. 

Eventually Merle shrugs. “Hell, I aint yer’ boss, he called by the way, didn’t sound too happy about you bein’ missin’. I jus’ wondered if she was a good fuck is all.” 

He’s clearly bullshitting, and Daryl’s grateful for it. So he nods. “Yeah, she was alright.” 

Merle laughs, and starts picking at him for his ‘lack of pussy catching ability’. Daryl fights back, and it’s an old, comfortable pattern. 

They end up drinking beers in the living room, both pretending to watch some game on the ancient tv. Daryl lets it all wash over him, gazing vacantly at the screen until the game ends and some other dumb shit comes on. Part of him hadn't believed Merle when he'd said it, but he checked and it had been seven entire days since Daryl had last been in his own house. He should probably call the garage tomorrow and see if he still has a job. He stands, claiming exhaustion from all the ‘excitement’ he’d been having and Merle laughs, though it’s a pretty hollow sound and he doesn’t meet Daryl’s eyes. 

He sets his can on the table to deal with later and a word on the paper catches his eye. _Missing_. Daryl sits back down and slides the newspaper out from the stack. Missing child. Valerie Adams. Reward for information. 

It’s the girl from the woods. The one Daryl had been telling himself he made up. 

“Yeah, shame that,” Merle says, mildly. “Family down the road, kid went missing. Weird.”

A cold drop of sweat rolls down Daryl's spine.

“Why weird?”

Merle shrugs, standing up and heading for the kitchen. “Found this plank of wood in her bed, like she’d been switched or something.” 

Daryl stares down at the picture for a long time. _We take all the damaged ones._ He glances up and nearly jumps, surprised to find Merle still standing by the door. 

Merle’s silent for a second. “Hell, it aint our business.” 

Daryl crumples it. “Yeah.” 

Merle nods, and they never talk about any of it again, not even as a joke. 

Turns out he did get fired, but Daryl finds a new job at a much shittier garage on the outskirts of Atlanta, an hour away. From then on he spends more and more time in the city, letting the rot of iron sink into his skin and forgetting what he’s seen. 

They never do find that girl. 

It all fades out of Daryl’s life entirely after that, and he does his best to let it. The years pass, Merle wanders in and out, and Daryl stays the same. They do ok. 

Then the dead rise up and all hell breaks loose.


	2. After

He’d be lying if he said that seeing the dead come back to life doesn’t scare him, even after all the other shit he’s seen. A little bit of almost-magic versus the entire world going to hell. There’s never been anything like this. 

Everything seems to happen all at once, and before he knows it, Daryl winds up in some ragtag group of survivors on the outskirts on the city with his brother. They’re almost all stupid, with the exception of Shane and maybe the one asian kid. Merle keeps talking about how they’re going to rip them all off, and Daryl thinks they probably deserve it. It might be good for them, teach them all a lesson about trust. 

The worst part is that people keep trying to include him in shit. He can hear the old guy, Dale, talk to people about ‘making them feel welcome’ and a couple of them take it seriously, especially the Mexican and one of the blonde women, the younger one. Daryl mentioned it to Merle, who had been using more and more since everything went to hell so he was pretty out of it a lot of the time. Merle’d just laughed, and told him to go for it, to get ‘in with the group’. Which Daryl thinks is easy for him to say, since doesn’t have to sit through the dinnertime storytelling sessions. 

“-and then we found you all," Morales finishes, staring down at the fire. His wife wraps her arm around his shoulders and squeezes. Everyone gathered around the fire smiles over at their little unit, and Daryl makes a half-hearted effort not to roll his eyes too obviously. The good news is now that the story is over he can probably leave now without it being some kind of major social breakdown and causing shit for himself. 

He makes to stand, but catches the blonde girl’s eye by mistake, not the child, the smaller of the two sisters, and she get’s that ‘let’s branch out’ look he’d noticed in her earlier and calls out for him. He ignores her, which apparently mortally offends the skinny dark haired one, Shane’s woman, and makes for the Dixon side of camp. The one nice thing about being generally hated is that people mostly don’t want to sleep in the same area as you.

On his way over he passes one of the weirder looking people he doesn’t know, and drifts to the side to let them know to just move on. Which of course, they don’t, stopping him to ask some kind of stupid question.

“Look, I don’ know who’s on watch later, ok, so piss off and-”

“ _Daryl?_ ” It’s the girl. Daryl almost ignores her, but something in her tone makes him turn and meet her wide eyed gaze. He checks the area for Walkers. Nothing. 

“What?” he growls.

She gives him a look like he’s crazy. “Who are you talking to?” 

He freezes, not wanting to turn around and check to see if the person he can’t hear breathing anymore is still next to him. 

She glances around. “Do you need some help or-”

“No,” he snaps. “I was talkin’ to myself alright, so leave me be.” 

She raises on delicately shaped eyebrow. “Okay...” she says, stretching the word out. 

“Listen Blondie-”

“Amy.” He glares at her, trying to work out if she’s very brave or just stupid, because most of the women at camp just skitter around him and avoid his eyes. She hadn’t done any of that, and it pisses him off almost as much as it makes him curious. But he isn’t getting involved with these people, so he just glares harder. 

“Whatever. You need somethin’ from me or-” 

“Nope,” she says, interrupting him. He glares at her, for all the good it does, which is none at all. “I just wanted to see if you want to come play this board game Dale has with us.” She smiles.

Jesus Christ. 

“No.” 

To her credit, she only looks a little offended. “Well-”

“No.” 

She bites her lower lip, and Daryl feels his eyes drop to the motion before yanking them back up. _Not going there,_ he thinks. 

He starts walking away, trusting that her survival instinct at least covers not going near Merle at night. “You people need to leave me be,” he calls out as a parting shot. She doesn’t follow.

The...person is gone, and when Daryl come back to look he can’t find any footprints. He tells himself that it’s dark and Amy just didn’t see them when they slipped away. No need to jump to any crazy ass conclusions or any shit like that. 

Daryl unzips their tent slowly but gets in quick, taking the crossbow with him and leaving his boots on. Merle rags on him for it, but he’s so damn _done_ with all of it he can’t bring himself to really care. He’d been meaning to go for a walk in the woods to clear his head, but he goes to sleep early instead, his dreams clouded and filled with the odd shapes of people and animals curving around each other and tearing him down. 

***

Some things haven’t really changed all that much. Daryl still spends a lot of his time alone in the woods, bringing in food. Only difference is that now it’s his only job and the trees are slightly different. They’re probably an extension of the same forest he's used to, but it’s an entirely new area for him, one that he devours with a mix of excitement and fear. 

Who the hell knows what’s hiding out there. 

Most of the time, he takes Merle with him when he goes out like this. Better to keep him close where he can’t do much damage, because much as Merle isn’t an evil man, he just plain doesn’t get along well with others, especially the ones that are _different_. Sometimes Daryl wonders if their mother had anything to do with that, or if Daryl did. He’ll never ask, but he thinks about it sometimes when Merle is three sheets to the wind and won’t remember much anyway. 

He doesn’t though, maybe because it’s a violation, maybe because Daryl is really a coward at heart just his father always said. Either way, he’ll never know. 

That morning, Merle had said in a tone not to be trifled with that he was staying at camp to sleep off the rest of his high, so Daryl had made his way into the woods alone, ignoring the way Andrea follows him with her eyes. She watches him a lot when she thinks he’s not paying attention. Daryl isn’t an idiot, and he’s not blind, so he knows that in a few days the blonde woman is going to work up the nerve to ask him to teach her to hunt. He can spot a survivor a mile away, and she’s got it. Once she gets the city out of her she’ll be one hell of an able-body. 

Of course, Daryl won’t teach her, he can’t with Merle around, but he’ll respect her more once she asks. He eyes a squirrel, estimating the distance. Best case, he can let her watch him skin and clean kills. He gets the feeling she’s a make the best of it type of person. 

“Looking for something?” a gravely voice asks, right behind him. 

Daryl whirls, caught so off guard that he almost slips and falls. He whips his head around, crossbow cocked, but he can’t see anything. 

He lets out a shaky breath. There’s nothing, but he doesn’t move. Maybe in the past he would have brushed it off, told himself he imagined it. But he knows what he heard. 

After an age though, he can’t just stand there listening anymore, something has to move or he’ll go crazy. He curses and makes his way deeper into the forest because he’ll be damned if he’s going to let some stupid voice stop him from finishing his hunt. He pushes deeper and deeper into the trees, only half paying attention to the animal life around him, more concerned with the sound of laughter he swears is following him. _Or herding him._ He realizes with a jolt and stops dead, heart pumping faster than it should.

Daryl turns, angry and ready to just deal with it but there’s nothing again. He glares around, making sure to look up, into the trees. Too many stupid empty puppets get in trouble because they can’t remember to look past their own limitations. He doesn’t see anything, and he doesn’t know where that thought came from either, but he can guess, and it puts him on edge. 

Still nothing. He swings around and punches a tree, aware of how pointless the action it is but needing the sting of pain to clear his mind. It’s not until he places both hands on the tree to lean against that he spots it. _A rock with a natural hole._ For some reason, the image catches in Daryl’s mind. 

It’s just a rock, but Daryl picks it up anyway and sticks it in his pocket.

It’s utterly ridiculous to go chasing after laughter, and he has people to feed. “Stupid, magic forest shit,” he growls, shifting his crossbow to a better positioning and heads off, back towards the lighter parts of the trees. 

It’s getting near dark by the time he makes it back. Merle is already passed out and doesn’t look like he’d stirred up too much shit, so Daryl counts that one as a win and goes to fix up his few kills. Maybe he’ll even set up within Andrea’s view. He almost walks right past them without noticing anything. It’s not like he pays close attention to the random group of nobodies he’s stuck with, but when a familiar laugh floats across the dirt patch they call home, Daryl turns, searching. 

It’s one of the little kids, the blonde girl, and a creature that is nowhere near normal enough to pass for human despite its disturbing pseudo-resemblance in structure. Daryl freezes. They’re right in the middle of camp. He’s standing there like an idiot, just staring openly, but the thing, Daryl can’t tell male or female, hell, maybe it doesn’t have a gender, has some weird shit going on that he hasn’t seen in years. Big floppy ears like a rabbit except _not_ , covered in dark fur, and a long, curving tail. 

If you’d asked him a month earlier what he would do if he ever came face-to-face with one of them again, he doesn’t know what he would have said but it sure as hell wouldn’t have been nothing. 

The girl, Sophia he remembers now, seems oblivious to his scrutiny, apparently content to play in the dirt with a monster at her back. The creature is doing something with her hair, maybe braiding it, maybe getting ready to rip it all out, Daryl can’t tell. Just as he’s about to make himself do something, anything, Daryl spots Dale heading straight for the odd pair like he can’t even see the weirdness of it all. He realizes with a shock when Dale reaches down to ruffle Sophia’s hair, his arm way too close to the thing’s mouth, that he probably can’t. 

“Playing all by yourself Sophia?” Dale asks, smiling.

She looks at him shyly and smiles back, something sly in her eyes that usually isn’t there. “Yes sir.” 

Son of a bitch. 

The...thing looks up then, right into Daryl’s eyes and smiles at him. “Want to play?” it asks, voice deep.

Daryl blinks. “What?”

“Sorry son?” Dale asks as he passes, giving him a strange look, probably due to the fact that he's staring right at the little girl. Daryl glares at him, reluctant to take his eyes away from their guest. 

“Nothin’ old man,” he growls, trying to make it fast since the thing is getting up and _christ_ it’s tall on two legs and heading straight for him. Sophia watches from her place in the dirt, eyes wide. Luckily for him, Dale gives him a rather unimpressed look and leaves, shooting Sophia one last smile. As soon as he can get away with it Daryl backs away from the creature’s approach, but it just grins and keep coming. Daryl doesn’t know what will happen if he shoots at it, besides the obvious shit he’ll land himself in for firing so close to a child, but he has to do _something_. Sophia scrambles to her feet and runs to stand in between them. 

“Bunny, no. You’re scaring him.” 

Daryl glares. Scared? The thing grins down at her, teeth huge, and Daryl decides not to push it, merely grabbing Sophia by the arm and pulling her to stand behind him, raising the cross bow. 

“ _Bunny?_ ” Daryl spits. Behind him, he feels one of the kid’s hands take hold of the back of his shirt.

“Yes. Bunny, go. I’ll come see you again soon,” Sophia says. Daryl snorts. Not if he has anything to say about it. 

The thing- Bunny, or whatever, looks down and gives her a soft look. “Very well,” it says, voice deep and black as water in the dark and a chill runs up Daryl’s spine. Animals shouldn’t talk. They just shouldn’t. 

It turns, dropping to all fours and heads back into the forest. Sophia makes a disappointed sound behind him which Daryl ignores, eyes still on the point he’d last been able to see it. 

“Bunny is of the fey,” Sophia says, matter of fact and Daryl nods, knowing exactly where the formal phrasing had come from. No point in denying it really, not at this point. 

Better or worse, things are different now, and he glances down at the little girl standing next to him, regarding him with a contemplative expression. He looks back, acutely aware that she’s the first person he’s ever met who can see them too. It doesn’t mean all that much in the end, but it does mean that he can’t deny them any more, because it can't possibly be all in his head when she’s just like him. Can’t deny _faries_ or whatever the hell they are. 

He sighs, watching her watch him with something like wonder, biting her lip like she want to explode into questions. Daryl doesn’t want to deal with that, but at least the worst is over for the day. 

_”Sophia?”_

Shit. He’d forgotten about the mother.


	3. Day to Day

Daryl wakes up the next morning and nothing much has changed. He goes hunting early in the morning, keeping a sharp eye out for little girls playing in the woods and their shared acquaintance. The only thing different about it is that now he wears his clothes inside out to try to ward them off. No big deal. He’s just sitting down with his kills when he hears a voice behind him. 

“Mr. Dixon?”

Daryl nearly snaps the bolt he’s fixing in half. Christ but the kid is quiet. He turns, glaring.

“Girl, where does yer’ mother think you are?” He really doesn't want to deal with her glares and suspicious looks again, even if she is mousy as hell.

Sophia blinks at him, all innocent looking. “With my dad, but he thinks I’m with her, so.” She smirks, tilting her head. 

He snorts. “Use that one a lot I bet.” She shrugs, her already birdlike-bones sticking out even more against the fabric of her t-shirt. 

“Bunny wants you to come play with us next time.” 

Daryl pauses, looking up to meet her gaze. “You talk to him since yesterday?” 

She nods. “He says that he forgives you for pointing the metal weapon at him, and that he wants to give you a special present.”

“Sure he does.” Like maybe the gift of gouged out eyes so he can’t interfere with his games anymore.

“Tell you what,” Daryl says, feigning interest in his bolt. “How about I teach you to clean a kill instead.” 

Daryl had done a lot of thinking back on his childhood during the night and over the past few hours, reexamining his memories with the new understanding of them all probably being true, and he remembers the ones like ‘Bunny’. Pookas, his friends had called them, black shape shifters that you could never be sure about, equally likely to help you and to harm you. 

And, like most of the fey, known to regard humans as toys. 

He’s willing to bet she doesn’t get a whole lot of adult attention on a regular basis, and to a kid like her, Daryl knows that time like the kind he’s suggesting might be more valuable than magic. 

Like he’d thought, Sophia’s eyes go wide, and she nods. 

Which is how he winds up spending the next few hours with the kid, who unlike most of the brats he’d known in his life is actually quiet, polite, and disinclined to think that she knows more than the adults around her, except when it comes to the most important thing.

“-and they _aren’t_ evil, they just aren’t like us. Bunny helps me a lot when my dad-” she breaks off, flicking her eyes up to his face and back down again. “When I need someone to play with.” Daryl just nods, because he’s pretty sure that he gets it. 

“I’ve...never met anyone else like me before,” she says, quietly, like she’s expecting a slap. Daryl just meets her eyes and tells her what she’s doing wrong with the gutting of the squirrel. 

They work in silence for a while, Daryl looking up every few minutes to scan the tree line for any unwelcome visitors, dead and alive alike. He clears his throat. “You know how to protect yerself from em’?” 

She looks up, frowning. “They’re my friends,” she says, slowly.

“Sometimes.” Daryl turns and spits. “But not always. They aren’t like us, ‘yer right, and they aint’ evil, but they don’t think like we do. Don’t see the world the same way. We’re just like pets to them, little rats running around and dying out before they can even tell us apart. Bunny aint’ no pet, and he isn’t a person neither. You can’t trust em’, any of em’. They’ll play with you one day an’ kill you the next, just for fun.”

She stares up at him, eyes wide. It’s probably the most amount of words he’s said in one go in years, let alone since this all started, but he knows that this is something she needs to understand. He'd never forgive himself if he didn't tell her and she got hurt because of it. 

“Bells keep you safe,” he says, dredging up the old lessons. “Runnin’ water, clover, cold iron. Wearin' yer clothes inside out.” There’s probably more, but it’s been so long that it’s hard to remember. 

He looks her hard in the eye, half expecting her to get up and run back to her mother, or maybe to her monster friends, but she doesn’t. Just stares down at the dead thing in front of her and bites her lip. Daryl goes back to his kills, giving her privacy. It’s a hard pill to swallow, especially when the monsters are the best thing in your life, but kids like them have to grow up faster than most, especially now.

“One time they came and got me from school,” Sophia says, eyes still downturned. “We went to a party in a fairy ring, and they put flowers in my hair. But sometimes, it wasn’t good. Not for the others.” 

Daryl just openly stares at her, kills forgotten. “What others?”

She sniffled, looking away. “They said I was special, more interesting, because of the Sight. I could see right through their glamours, so I was worth something. But sometimes, the other people...weren’t.” She looks up at him, eyes watering.

Jesus. 

Daryl shifts, thinking to turn her attention back to the kills when he hears something crashing in the woods. He looks up, squinting into the trees and knowing full well that no farie would be so noisy. Which pretty much only leaves one other option. 

“Get on back to ‘yer mama now, and stay there, no woods.” He glares at her to make sure she gets it. 

Sophia flinches back but leaves without question, glancing back at him every few steps. She isn’t fast enough to avoid Merle though, who emerges from the trees and nearly trips over her tiny form. She jumps back, and then runs for the main camp. 

“The hell-” 

“It’s fine Merle, she just got sent to ask about dinner.” Daryl meets her eyes. “Go on now.” 

She does, and Daryl watches her skittering away like kicked puppy. Daryl almost feels bad about it, but it’s not like being nice will help her in the long run anyway. He turns back to his kills, trying to ignore Merle level gaze.

“You got a thing ‘fer little girls now?”

Daryl glares. “Shut the hell up, aint nothin’ like that.” 

“No? Then what’s it like? Because I know them people didn’t send a little kid to talk to the camp baddies.” 

Daryl just ignores him, stripping the skin from another squirrel. Merle sits next to him, his sharp eyes trained on his face. 

“Do not get into none of that weird shit again y’ hear? Not this time.”

Daryl freezes, looking up at his brother in disbelief. “What?”

“The geezer was talkin’ to people about you, you know that? Somethin’ about you actin’ crazy, playin’ monster games with the kid. Cept’ you aint playin’ are you?” 

Merle’s looking at him in a way he usually doesn’t, all pretending stripped away. Daryl isn’t sure what to do with it.

“I don’t-”

“Yes you do. You know what I’m talkin’ about.”

“Man, shut the hell up! Yer’ actin’ all crazy, talkin' about monters or some shi-”

“I aint’ the one who’s _crazy_ baby brother, don’ think I don’ know what’s goin’ on with you!” 

“Well you don’t, and it don’t matter neither so jus’ leave it alone!” Daryl yells, pushing to stand and snatching his bow from the dirt as he walks away, ignoring his brothers shouts from behind him as he nearly runs into the woods. Merle doesn’t follow him, probably too scared of Daryl’s ‘imaginary friends’.

Daryl just scoffs at the thought and pushes deeper, further into the trees as the sun starts to drop lower and lower in the sky. 

***

What starts out as a rage-fueled rampage through the trees quickly turns into a tracking opportunity when he pauses in his destruction of a log and spots deer signs. He glares down at them for a minute before breathing in and lowering the leg he’d been using to kick the shit out of the innocent wood. “Might as well,” he mutters. It’s not like he wants to go back to camp anyway.

He’s almost disappointed during the next few days that he doesn’t see anything weird. No Trolls hiding under old bridges, no Kelpies tries to entice him to swim. No Pooka comes to take his eyes. He would have liked the fight. 

Not thinking about Merle and that fact that he pretty much came out and said that he knows about Daryl proves to be fairly easy when Daryl has a project. Hunting always clears his head. It gets to the point that he can almost forget all of it, Merle, Sophia, everything. If it weren’t for the rock in his pocket, he could almost pretend that he’s back in the woods behind his house and its just another day. 

Eventually though, he has to come back. What he finds though, is a whole lot of bullshit. 

“Let me just process this, you’re tellin’ me that you handcuffed my brother to a roof, and you _left him there!_ ” 

The new guy looks at him evenly for a few seconds before nodding. “Yes.” 

Daryl yells and throws the string of squirrels he had managed to catch, launching himself at the other man. He gets taken down though, and excuse him if he doesn’t think that two against one is fair. They end up piled into a cube van and driving back into the city, Daryl glaring around at everyone and thinking that while he had wished that he wouldn’t have to talk Merle about his problem when he got back, this really wasn’t what he had in mind. 

Nothing goes according to plan. They don’t find him, Glenn gets fucking _taken_ off the street by fake gangsters, and Daryl is very much reminded of why he prefers to be alone the vast majority of the time. 

He doesn’t see any monsters in the city though, not even the human kind, so at least there’s that.

Their welcome back up at camp isn’t any better. People are screaming, walkers are everywhere, and Daryl has a moment of sheer frustration as he fires into the frenzy. Did Merle lead them up here? He thinks that maybe he doesn’t want to know. 

When it’s over, it’s really over and the silence is broken only by harsh breathing and even harsher crying. Daryl takes it all in and almost turns around to take his chances in the woods, maybe he can become like one of those mountain people you see on TV sometimes. Lone ranger style. 

He catches sight of Sophia, wrapped up in her mother’s arms and shaking. Considers maybe going over and telling her that it will all be ok, he won’t let the walkers or the faries or anything else the world throws at them get her, but he can’t promise any of that, so he doesn’t. She watches him stalk past though, tears streaking down her cheeks, and he notices that at least her t-shirt is inside out. _Good girl,_ he thinks.

Eyes in the trees follow him as he makes his way over to his truck and gets in, slamming the door with more force than is likely necessary or smart, and figures that his chances are probably better with the group anyway. Daryl lets himself pass out in the backseat, body sore from the beating he’d sustained and all the running he’d done after. Luckily, he’s too exhausted to do much thinking. 

When he wakes up, there’s a Pooka standing at the window, looking down on him.


	4. Keep Going

His truck is made of iron. Cold iron. He knows because he knows his trucks. There might be some other metals mixed in there, but the majority of the body is cheap, rusty _iron_ poison to the fey. 

Daryl takes a deep breath, his eyes fixed on the monstrous face staring down at him through the small window of the backseat. He wraps a hand slowly around the crossbow, thinking. The bolt tips won’t be iron, but they’ll still punch through flesh and maybe give him a shot.

 _A shot at what?_ He pushes the thought down, concentrating. He can make a run for it, maybe back towards the city. 

Bunny gives him a distinctly unimpressed look. “Really. You’re going to shoot me?”

Daryl opens his mouth to say that hell yes he’s going to, when Sophia’s blonde head appears in the window. “Mr. Dixon! Don’t!” she chirps, dwarfed next to the massive black shape. He jerks the bow down automatically. 

Goddamn it. 

Daryl glares, moving to get out of the truck through the other door, away from the beast. It’s not like he can really afford to be seen hiding in his truck like a bitch anyway. He comes around the back to see her standing on one of the Pooka’s bent knees, still level with the window. 

“Girl-” Daryl stops, readjusting the crossbow so that it isn’t pointed at them (or from an outside perspective, just at her). “Get down from there, where are yer’ parents?” he demands, eyeing the farie warily. 

Her bright expression falters and she blinks, owl like. “My-” 

“Sophia’s mother sent us to wake you up so you can help with the work,” Bunny answers for her, reaching over and picking Sophia up. She giggles, pawing at his huge and furry arm with her reedy one and Daryl fights the urge to flinch when it flails too close to his sharp teeth. The Pooka just looks at him, somehow looking condescending under all the fur. Daryl shifts his weight to the other side. Of all the ways he thought this conversation was going to go, awkward was not what he had been expecting. 

“Wait- us?” Daryl spits, looking him straight in the eye. “What d’ya mean _us?_ ”

Sophia manages to look at him from her distinctly upside down position. The Pooka has her by the feet now. “It’s the glamour. Mama thinks that Bunny is a shaggy dog. We can see it because we’re-”

“Special, I know,” he says, not bothering to stop the derision from creeping into his voice. She smiles at him, and under normal circumstances he might have made an effort to smile back, but there’s a giant and dangerous monster holding her five feet off the ground that still might be the safest thing in her life at this point. So he thinks he’s justified in not quite getting there. 

“Whatever kid, you aint’ my problem,” he says as he turns away, hard as it is to put his back to the Pooka. Nothing else for it really. It’s not like he can start shooting at Sophia’s new pet. He spends the rest of the morning getting fussed at for trying to do the smart thing and properly dispose of the bodies, and then trying to do the same with Jim when they find out he's been bitten. The thing about these people is that they just have no idea what they’re doing, except maybe Rick. Daryl isn’t even counting the other’s he’d previously considered capable anymore because clearly it isn’t true. 

He ends up storming off to go do something useful with his time, anger fueling his steps, half-formed worry for Sophia creeping up his spine. He’d left her with that thing, but what was he supposed to do? The whole damn situation has him so riled up he nearly trips over Ed Peltier’s body, nearly unrecognizable from the clear chewing he- it had gotten. 

“Son of a-” Daryl breaks off, glancing over towards the vehicles. He can’t see her or the ‘dog’, and he hopes to god that she hadn’t seen _this_. As much as he doesn’t believe in sheltering people, even kids, from the shit the world throws at them, some things just aren’t necessary. 

He winds up leaving Ed’s body for last, feeling somehow awkward about the whole thing. Turns out to be for the best because the wife- Carol winds up doing it, smashing the guy’s head in _thoroughly_. Daryl watches her, sees the total rage and sadness there, and still he can’t help but think about a little girl just like him instead. The day his mother had burned to death he had gone out to the woods to play with the monsters too. 

“Thank you,” Carol says, after she’s done and the moment is starting to pass. She hands him the pick-axe and avoids his eyes, and he doesn’t say anything. 

Sophia plays with her ‘new pet’ all day, in the corner of Daryl’s eye. He hears Shane gripe about it, saying how a dog is too loud, too much effort. He catches the tension between him a Rick as he pulls the other man aside.

“What Shane, the girl just lost her father and now you want to get rid of her dog? Are you going to take it out in the woods and shoot it?”

“Man don’t-”

Daryl walks away, back towards his truck. If he was closer to either of them, he'd go and support Shane's side but it’s not like he can clue them in on the fact that getting that dog into the woods alone would be more dangerous for them that it would for ‘Bunny’. He walks through the camp undisturbed. There’s talk of moving on. There’s a disturbing lack of talk about Jim, the time bomb in the RV. There’s no more talk about his brother, though Daryl figures that in a world like this you cut your losses where you can.

“Maybe the faries got him,” Daryl mutters to himself, taking stock of what’s left of their supplies. 

“What’s that son?” a voice next to his ear asks. Daryl rolls his eyes. 

“I said, mind yer’ own old man. The hell you doin’ anyway?” 

Dale gives him a calculating look, just sort of standing in the middle of camp. He nods towards the RV. “Just keeping an eye on things.” 

Daryl looks, and it’s Andrea and Amy. Or the thing that _was_ Amy. He scoffs. “Suppose we’re jus’ letting that one go too then. Don’t come cryin’ to me when she gets bit.”

Dale raises a hand to his jaw, not looking away from the two blondes. “She won’t.” 

“Yeah- sorry if I’m not comin’ along with you on that,” Daryl says, and continues on his way, glaring around at everyone who steps into his path and avoiding looking back in their direction. Amy the nice girl. The dumb, wide-eyed one who wouldn’t leave him alone. He slams the door to his truck a little too hard. 

“Mr. Dixon?” 

He turns, already annoyed, but can’t really hold it when he sees Sophia standing there, alone. 

“Where’s the furball?” Daryl asks, glancing around in suspicion. At least before he’d had the relative security of knowing where the thing was, though he supposes that it had to have been at least seven hours or so since they woke him up. The fey aren’t known for their long attention spans, and even less for their kindness. 

Her mouth twitches, like she knows she’s supposed to smile. She looks down instead, but not quickly enough, her eyes filling with tears. “I guess he got bored.” 

_And that,_ Daryl thinks, _is the problem with the fey._ The girl needs a reality check though, she doesn’t need comfort. Harsh as it sounds, she can’t afford it anymore, probably never could. So he stays standing, looking down at her. 

“That’s what they do. I tol’ you they ain’t yer’-”

She lunges suddenly and wraps her arms around his middle. Daryl has an absolute, what the fuck, no idea what to do moment before he awkwardly lowers his hand to pat her head lightly. She’s shaking. He feels close to her in spite of himself. He isn’t stupid, so he knows _why_ she had latched onto him so quickly. Their shared connection, the Sight or whatever. It’s an illusion, like the magic. Daryl lets her hold onto him for a while anyway, thinking that maybe if he’d had someone to do this for him back when he’d been the abandoned one- maybe it would have mattered. Maybe sometimes a little comfort is due. 

After a while she starts to calm down and Daryl detaches her claw-like fingers from his shirt, shifting away to get a look at her. She mostly just looks tired. 

“You should probably get back to yer’ mama.” 

Sophia glances up at him, something like hurt curling in her eyes and Daryl inwardly curses himself for being an idiot and her for making him this way. “She’ll worry, is all. she loves you a lot,” he clarifies, not sure why he should be so nice, why he _wants_ to be kind to this child.

She nods and makes to move away, but Daryl stops her. “Hey kid...yer’ dad, he- I’m sorry about it,” he finishes, awkwardly. 

Sophia just nods again, eyes flat. “Mortals fade,” she says, simply, and turns, walking back towards the main part of camp.

Daryl stares after her, numbly. He couldn’t have been more shocked if she’d bitten him. 

He thinks about following, maybe talking to her some more, but it’s not like him having a heart to heart with a twelve year old girl about how she shouldn’t emulate the faries in the middle of camp will go over well with the others. And anyway, he’s pretty sure that there’s nothing he can do. He goes back to burning bodies instead. 

When it comes time to move on from the camp, Daryl finds himself accepting Rick’s decision to venture back into the city easily, despite the obvious danger. All that metal...at least the Walkers he understands. They’re dumb, predictable. 

Not like some of the other things out there. 

There’s no sleep for him that night, not even after he finishes his watch in the early hours of the morning. Daryl just climbs back into his truck, which is rapidly becoming his favorite, most comfortable place, and tries not to think about how that used to be the open woods. Tries not to think about anything really. 

***

Driving again, being out on the open road, is surprisingly nice, if anything is nice anymore. Daryl hadn’t realized how much he would miss the little things about life from before, it’s not like his life had been anything special. He finds himself relaxing into the worn seats of the truck, letting himself focus on the long stretch of road ahead, content in the silence and solitude of the truck cab. He sticks one elbow out the window and tries to ignore the eyes and figures he swears he can see in the trees, following him. Them. He wonders if Bunny is out there too, playing some kind of game or if he’d really just lost interest. Neither one would surprise him. 

Daryl remembers the empty days as well as the bright ones. The sting of being ignored, left behind. It’s not something you ever forget, not really, though he’d taken to attributing it to the more normal sort of abandonment over the years. He tightens his hands on the wheel and thinks about other things, like the fact that they’d left Jim on the side of the road to die like an animal. 

Daryl figures there are worse situations he could be in, all things considered. 

They make it to the CDC just as it’s starting to get dim, which is bad. Daryl glances over to where the others are assembling and catches Shane’s eye. The other man gives him a look that says exactly what he’s thinking himself; they need to move fast. He can’t decide if Sophia is avoiding his eyes specifically or not, staring out into the trees that border the parking lot. Daryl tries not to give a damn, he really does. Girl is just going to end up getting him into shit. 

She looks up then, right at him, her mouth set in the same hard line as yesterday. Daryl turns his attention back to the group. 

Either way, it’s best they get inside. 

“Alright everyone,” Rick says, ever the leader. “Let’s go.” He looks a bit crazed, and Daryl can see why looking at the building. There’s just no way. 

The next few minutes are increasingly tense, filled with a lot of screaming and banging on the protective metal door that just _isn’t going to open._ Looking back, Daryl will mostly just remember the slow approach of the Walkers as the light gets worse and worse. Thinking about his brother, and about how if he had been there he’d beat his ass for going with these idiots in the first place. Panic starts to take hold, riling them all up, putting them at even more risk.

Everything happens in a blur- he takes down a walker, reloading before he lets his brain catch up with itself. He might have caught sight of one of _them_ out on the outskirts, watching them with shining eyes under two curving horns but then the doors open and Daryl can’t be bothered to look twice. 

He grabs his stuff and books it, instinctively making sure Sophia and her mother make it inside before swinging around to cover the group from behind, not daring to truly believe it until the man comes up and shuts the door. 

Against all reason, they’re safe.


	5. The Long Road

Sometimes Daryl takes stock of himself and thinks that his father was probably right about him, at least about the stupid part. Hauling ass through the CDC hallways and up to the lobby only to then remember that they’re obviously locked in there too is one of those times. 

_The last time._ Daryl thinks, pacing up and down the space. He can’t believe that they’re going to die now, and of all the stupid shit to die of, they get swept up by a crazed suicidal scientist. He thinks that he would have almost preferred it if the fey had finally come for him. At least that would have been a _fight_. Not this horrible waiting around bullshit, and now the walls are closing in and Daryl is going to die in about a minute. He wants desperately to be able to think of this as a good thing like Andrea does- as a release from the hell they’d been living in, but he can’t quite. It’s just not in his nature. He’s about to lash out again and then Carol pulls out an honest to god _grenade_ and saves their asses. 

Then they’re making a mad dash for the vehicles, not even bothering to really watch where they’re going or what they’re running towards. Daryl dispatches an approaching walker without thinking about it, the swing of the axe totally reflexive. He winds up jumping over the hood of his truck and landing on the other side, not counting on the time it could take to open the door and close it again. He doesn’t let himself look as the building blows, just feels the impact through the ground. 

He stays like that, sat on the ground and leaning against the side of his shitty old truck, just breathing until he hears someone ask where he is, maybe thinking that he had taken off and left them. 

Maybe he should. 

He pushes himself up and confers with the group instead. Then they’re driving away, trying to get away from the scene as quickly as possible before the geeks start to swarm in. Not to mention anything else that might have heard. Rick asks Daryl to help keep an eye out for potential places for them to stay, a task he adopts with single minded focus, trying to push out everything else, trying to ignore the flashes he sees in the trees. They drive for a few hours, looking for a place to set up. There isn’t much. 

“Jesus, look at this,” he mutters, carding his fingers through his hair, not bothering to stop himself from talking out loud in the privacy of his own truck. They’ve stopped for the second time, this time in a small housing community just outside the city. Several of the houses in one area are totally burned out, and bodies scatter the ground, maybe the result of a failed last stand. Some bastard with a flamethrower gets overrun, taking a bunch of geeks down with him, and the neighborhood gets torched. 

Or maybe someone just left the stove on when they escaped, but Daryl likes the flamethrower more. 

Rick taps on the window to get his attention and Daryl glares at him before getting out, making sure to take his own sweet time with it. He might be with these people on a temporary basis, but he isn’t their bitch. 

***

He’s perched on a picnic table in one of the fenced backyards, trying to keep away from the others and work on his crossbow when Sophia seeks him out, climbing up to sit next to him. Daryl surreptitiously looks her over. The experience seems to have shaken the kid to the core, unhinging the careful mask she’d had in place for most of the last two days, but there’s still a flatness to her eyes, and it puts him on edge.

 _Mortals fade._

He doesn’t even begin to know where to start with that one. He's not qualified for this shit.

“Bunny hasn’t come back yet,” she says, quietly. 

Daryl glances over at her from the corner of his eye. “Yeah? D’ya know why?” 

He hears her shift on the bench, looking out towards the trees. “Yes.” 

“Good.” They lapse back into silence, Daryl adjusting and readjusting the calibration of the bow in silence, Sophia just sitting there, small and quiet. Hurt. 

He knows that he shouldn’t be turning this girl’s life into his...project, or whatever, but he can’t help but reach into his pocket and pull out the rock he’d found, turning it over and over in his hands. Something about it made him pick it up that day, though he can’t remember what. _A rock with a natural hole._ It’s special. He’s sure of it, even if he doesn’t know why. Maybe it isn't and they can just pretend. 

“Here,” he says, offering it to her. Sophia stares up at him, clearly confused and maybe a bit suspicious. She takes it though, looking at it with barely concealed curiosity. She turns it over and over in her hand, examining it. 

“What does it do?” she asks in a soft voice, her eyes wide. 

Daryl looks away. “Old fey magic. Keeps you safe.” He stands, slinging the bow up onto his shoulder. “Better hang onto the that fer’ me, y’hear?” 

Sophia nods, solemn with the seriousness of the situation before she smiles, slipping it over four of her fingers. Her hand is almost small enough for it to go all the way down to her wrist. Daryl doesn’t believe in comforting lies, they don’t make you stronger and they can only hurt you in the end. A rock is just rock, he should be teaching her how to shoot, not patting her on the head and walking away. He'll teach her to shoot tomorrow. 

The fey would never have lied to her, never would have been kind to her or coddled her in any way. Daryl knows how to get stronger, harder. A comforting lie is no fair trade for a real lesson, even if that lesson leaves you broken down and scarred. 

Daryl isn’t a farie though, he can lie all he wants. And one day he’ll ask about her father. 

***

“So if we take this route, assuming it’s not too blocked we should be able to make it to the Fort in decent time.” 

Daryl leans against the wall of the main house they’re staying in, arms crossed and silent. Rick and Shane are going through their plan, which Daryl is only half paying attention to because it really doesn’t concern him. He'll just do what they do. It’s not like they’re asking for input anyway. He looks out the window, scanning the yard for Walkers and other threats. Nothing. He huffs and goes to look back to Rick when a movement in the corner of his eye catches his attention.

Daryl turns and freezes, muscles locked down. There’s a man standing next to the big oak tree in the front yard, half obscured by shadows, but not so much that Daryl can’t see the horns curling down to his brow. 

The man- _farie,_ he corrects himself, nods to Daryl when he sees him looking, and turns to walk away. Daryl has to fight the urge to jump straight to his feet and run after him. He isn’t sure why, but he knows this one. 

Rick calls out his name, sounding annoyed. Daryl just glares in his general direction and straightens up. “I’m goin’ out on patrol,” he calls out, not waiting for a response. Let them think what they want. 

Once his feet hit solid earth he slows down, raising the bow for what might be a very false sense of security depending on who exactly he’s dealing with. The horned man is gone from behind the tree, which is hardly surprising. Daryl nods to himself and keeps alert. He turns, mostly to make sure Sophia isn’t following him because she's a little shit sometimes who doesn't know what's good for her, and heads off towards the trees. He doesn’t find anything though, and all the way back through the woods in the dark he knows that he’s being watched. He takes his frustrations out on a couple of walkers unlucky enough to cross his path and wonders if the fey see people like he sees the geeks. Aimless, dumb, slow things. Not really worth the time it takes to tell them apart. 

When he gets back, Sophia is sitting on the porch step, staring out at the street with her arms wrapped around her knees. 

“Jesus, girl,” he growls, glaring her way. Out in the open. 

She brightens anyway. “Mr. Dixon!” 

“Get back in the house right now- the hell is wrong with you?” 

To her credit, her expression only falters a little, clearly used to this type of rejection. Daryl keeps on glaring at her until she gets up and goes, back to the relative safety of the house and her mother. He sits down hard on the step, right where she’d been and sets about tending to his crossbow. It doesn’t need it, but he can’t stand the thought of dealing with anymore people for the rest of the day. The feeling of being watched doesn’t go away though and when he looks up the third time he finally spots the horned man in a window across the street, who watches him with a bored expression for a few more seconds before turning away, disappearing into the house. 

Daryl just continues to sit on the step as the light fades. It’s dangerous and stupid, but he’s too wound up and tired to go anywhere. It’s the eyes that stick in his memory, dragging up the old images like the rock with the natural hole. Right there on the edge of his memory. He remembers seeing a flash of horns outside of the CDC, but that’s all he can come up with. What he really wants to know is how long the farie stood there and watched Sophia while she waited for Daryl to come back. 

Finally he goes back inside, thinking to talk to Sophia, make sure he knows why he fussed at her, but she's asleep. Her mother catches him instead, looking nervous as always but unusually determined, pointing to the empty back room.

Daryl follows, keeping a respectable distance between them so as not to startle her. "What is it?" he asks, knowing vaguely that it's obviously about Sophia. She probably came crying to her mom to tell her that _Mr. Dixon_ was mean to her. Probably for the best. 

Carol glances around nervously, like she always does. "Nothing it's just...I know you've been real nice to my daughter even though you don't have to be, and I wanted to think you." 

Daryl blinks. "Oh," he says dumbly. 

"She's never really had friends, or any older cousins or anything like that to show her stuff. So, thank you." 

_Or a father,_ Daryl thinks but doesn't say.

"Alright," Daryl says, and then Carol leaves him alone with his thoughts.

They leave Daryl’s truck behind when they move on the next morning. It’s the right decision, the logical one to save their resources, and it’s not like Daryl can make any kind of sane argument for the protection of iron against the fey, so he lets it go, still too preoccupied over the horned man and Carol to make any sort of a fuss. 

Daryl sort of forgets about both of those things though, when he comes back to the group after the herd passes on the highway and finds out that Sophia is missing. He nearly breaks his hand slamming it into the side of a car.


	6. Dead End

“Only one way to find out,” Rick says, pulling out his knife and hovering over the dead walker, the lines tight around his eyes. Daryl looks at him, and decides almost immediately that he isn’t the one for this particular job. 

He waves Rick away and takes his knife out. “Mine’s sharper,” he says by way of an excuse they can both identify for what it is, and digs right into the belly of the walker they’d taken out. It’s the one and only time that he’s grateful they _don’t_ find Sophia. 

Daryl straightens, stretching to pop the kinks out of his back and scans the area. “At least we know,” Rick says, setting off further into the woods. But they don't know, not really. Not with how many walkers there are in the entire forest. Daryl agrees mildly anyway, eyeing the position of the sun to gauge how much daylight they have left. It isn’t much, but as he turns to say so Rick suddenly throws out an arm, stopping him. 

“See that?” Rick murmurs, reaching towards the forest floor and picking something up. Rick holds it up to the light, grinning. “She’s been here recently, maybe in the last few minutes.” 

Daryl looks, trying to make sense of what Rick is saying. 

It’s a leaf. Just an ordinary, wet and brackish leaf. He opens his mouth to ask what the hell Rick thinks it is he’s found when Rick jumps up and makes an abortive movement towards the trees, throwing his arm out. 

“Sophia, is that you? Sweetheart, it’s Rick. Remember?” 

Daryl turns to cover Rick’s back, thinking hard. The possibility that they’re being fucked with is strong, but it is likely that she’d still be in the area. 

“Sophia!” The tone in Rick’s voice is unmistakable, and Daryl whirls in time to see the other man make right for the farie standing next to the biggest tree in the area. It looks like a cross between a person and a tree, feet deeply embedded into the ground and covered in twisting vines. His mouth goes dry, and he grabs for Rick’s sleeve purely on instinct. Rick turns to glare at him before pulling away and freezing. “No. Where’d she go?” He spins on his heels, searching. 

Daryl glances back at the still present farie, who is watching him now, though it must have gone ghost to Rick’s eyes. He keeps his gaze moving, never settling on the farie so it doesn't know he can see it. “Didn’t see nothin’,” he comments, mildly. “Mighta’ heard a walker though, we should probably keep moving.” 

“No,” Rick says, determined. “I saw her, she was right _here.”_

Daryl meets his eyes, though it’s hard to lie to this man and even harder to put his back to the farie. “Then why didn’t she stay? I’m tellin’ you, sometimes the woods make you confused. You see what you want to see.” 

Rick glares at him with all the force of frustrated, misdirected anger. “Maybe,” he finally agrees, his eyes searching on Daryl’s face. It serves to remind him that Rick doesn’t really have any reason to trust him. He’s only there for the value of his experience. 

Daryl glances back over to the tree to find the farie gone. An involuntary shiver runs up his spine and he turns away. “Best get a move on. Don’t want to lose the light.” 

He walks away without waiting for Rick to respond, and feels his eyes join the others that had already been following him through the trees. 

***

The search continues through crying mothers and Carl getting shot, through getting settled on the farm and all the quiet undercutting press of doubt he feels from the other group members. But fueled by Rick’s certainty that he had _seen_ her, that he had actually gained tangible proof of her being alive, the group remains on high alert. 

Daryl prefers to search alone, now more than ever. The fey are active in these woods, and as difficult as it is to track to begin with, it becomes even worse when he has Rick chasing shadows at his back. 

They divide the map into neat little boxes, setting up organized search zones and handing out little colored flags. Daryl leaves them to it, knowing better than to buy into thinking about the forest as if they can control it. He’s just turning to disappear into the trees when Dale, who misses nothing, stops him. 

“Daryl, wait up a minute.”

He shoots the older man an annoyed glance. “Make it quick.” Dale nods agreeably, his face open and earnest.

“I just wanted to make sure you’d be alright by yourself out there. I know that you and Sop-”

“You don’t know nothin’,” Daryl says, evenly. Dale shuts up, just looking at him from under that stupid hat with eyes that are far too astute for comfort. 

“Alright,” he says, turning to leave. But then he turns back. “I just hope you know what you’re doing out there, son. Far as I can tell...these woods play tricks, make you see things that aren’t there.” 

He meets Daryl’s eyes and holds him there for a second before turning around completely to join Carol at the picnic table. Daryl feels a chill shoot up his spine. Did he know? He’s too stunned to even get angry, so he just turns around himself and heads for something he understands.

The woods are alive, even more so than they’d been around the first camp. Daryl makes his way through the trees, keeping a sharp eye out. He knows what he’s looking for, assuming she kept her head and remembered what he told her. 

_Bells keep you safe. Runnin’ water, clover, cold iron._

Daryl had remembered the impromptu lessons he had given her as soon as they heard the church bells a few days before. Rick took of running with Daryl right behind him, heart pounding and thinking how smart she was to recognize that bringing everything in a five mile radius running- walkers included- was a small price to pay for keeping the real danger away. 

But when they got there, she wasn't the one ringing them. “Timer. It’s on a timer,” Glenn had said, turning towards the trees and frowning. Daryl spun around and nearly yelled out of pure frustration. He takes it out on a tree instead. 

Now, days later, all he hopes is that she heard them too, and remembers the other protections on the list.

Daryl spurs the horse he borrowed on, looking for an easy access route to the stream below. “Runnin’ water,” he mutters, tracing its path through the forest. Water carries a natural magic even the fey can’t alter, being too pure and old. Daryl knows this like he feels that Sophia is still alive. It’s the truth. 

He’s so preoccupied with finding the way down to the stream that he only notices the figure on the path when the horse starts to jerk nervously. Daryl automatically turns to calm her and spots a tall shape in his side vision, raising the cross bow without even thinking. The man simply eyes him with amusement, standing on the trail and holding a snake twisted around his left arm. 

“Shit,” Daryl mutters, heart rate picking up. Not a walker by a long shot, and Daryl recognizes him as the one he’d seen at the house near Atlanta, and maybe outside of the CDC. He glares and leaves the crossbow up. 

The farie cocks his head to the side, one horn brushing against his coat collar. “Now, now. Are you really going to _shoot_ me?” he asks, voice laced with silent laughter. His voice is deeper than what would be considered normal for a human and familiar, though Daryl can’t say how he knows it. He met so many of them in the past it’s hard to keep them apart in his mind at all. 

“I will if I have to,” Daryl says, evenly. The man bares his teeth in what is probably meant to be a smile and Daryl catches sight of row after row of tiny pointed teeth. 

“Really? Don’t you at least want to know my name before you kill me?”

“Fuck off. It’s not like you’ll tell me your real one.” 

The man nods approvingly. “Very good. Still though. After I stopped your horse from stepping on this?” He mocks, holding the snake up. “Tisk tisk. Who knows what could have happened.” He closes his fist and the snake dissolves into flower petals that scatter around his feet. Daryl watches them fall, anger rising in his blood. 

“Shut up. Why are you following me?” he demands, raising the cross bow slightly higher in threat. 

The man laughs darkly. “Oh do put that away child. What’s the point of all your posturing? We both know those aren’t iron arrows.” 

“I said shut up! Don’t bullshit me, they might not poison you, but they’ll still rip through yer’ skin. You followed me here from the house in Atlanta.” 

_”No._ Even with the Sight you aren’t that interesting to me.” And all of a sudden Daryl remembers. The little girl with the bruises holding the hand of the tall horned monster. 

“You,” Daryl says, a little more quietly than he means to. “You’re the one that put that _spell_ on me-” 

The kidnapper smiles again. “Mortals. Always so self centered. Even on a mission to rescue little lost Sophia.” He raises his hand, and Sophia’s doll is laying there, limp and dirty. Daryl feels his eyes widen without his permission, and the creature takes a step forward. “Oh yes. And she is alive, you’re right about that.”

Daryl resists the urge to jump off the horse and charge at him. “What’d you do to her?” He nearly screams, hands shaking on the trigger of his weapon. 

“Me?” The man asks, glaring. “I’m not the one who was supposed to look out for her. I’m the one that fixes the messes that your kind creates.” 

“Did you take her?”

His eyes glitter in the sun. “No.” 

“Is she-”

“I don’t owe you anything,” He hisses, face contorted in sudden anger. “You humans, always with your demands and lies and favors. So boring, yet so destructive. Look what you’ve done to your world.” 

Daryl shakes with the effort of not exploding into action, trying to keep himself grounded. “Just tell me-”

But then the wind shifts and the man is gone. 

***

Days pass and Daryl doesn’t see the man again, though he doesn’t doubt that he’s being watched. It’s typical faire bullshit. 

He throws himself into the search, now as sure as Rick that Sophia’s alive. Neither of them can explain how they’re so sure, but Rick at least has stopped telling people whenever he ‘sees’ her. He’s been tricked, but Daryl knows for sure. Faries can’t lie. 

Dale continues to stare at him. Rick eyes him contemplatively. Carol watches him with barely contained hope. 

Daryl just keeps looking. 

He finds his way to the river without any major delays, taking comfort in the relative safety of the water. He runs his hands through the stream, making sure to keep a sharp eye out for walkers or anything more dangerous. He doesn’t see any that day, but he also doesn’t find Sophia. There is nothing to bring back to her mother, no shred of evidence to share with the group to keep their faith going. He wishes that he had the doll, because out of everyone in the group it seems like it’s really only him and Rick left who truly believe they’ll find her. Even Carol has started to accept the fact that she may never see her daughter again, Daryl can tell. 

He brings her a flower instead, since he has nothing else to offer. 

On his way back to his campsite, Glenn excitedly calls out to him. “Hey, Daryl! Look!” 

He turns, annoyed at the kid’s yelling, and freezes. “Shit,” he mutters to himself, angry for leaving his crossbow so far away. All he has is his boot knife. 

Glenn doesn’t seem to notice his inner turmoil, sitting in the dirt like an idiot. “Andrea found him,” he says, grinning. “It’s Bunny- Sophia’s dog!” 

The small cluster of people surrounding the Pooka all beam over at him expectantly. Daryl just nods, mouth pressed into a flat line. He knows that a normal person would go over there, maybe pet the ‘dog’ a bit. He had never been more grateful for having a reputation for being an asshole in his life. 

“Keep it away from me,” he growls and tries to continue on his way. Really, he should turn around and get back in the R.V. which has to have at least some iron in it, but what would he tell Carol? From the ground, the Pooka watches him, smiling lazily. 

Glenn laughs. “Oh, come _on_ Daryl-” 

Andrea laughs from on top of the R.V. “Oh leave him be, he doesn’t want to pet the dog.” 

“Actually, I was thinking that maybe it could help us find Sophia, since it spent so much time with her,” Glenn says, like this is some kind of genius plan. Which it probably would be if they were dealing with an actual dog and not a terrifying monster. 

Daryl eyes the farie. “You mean like tracking?” 

“Yeah!” Glenn answers, though Daryl had really been asking the thing next to him. 

Bunny shifts, leaning back to rest on his hind legs and rising to about six feet tall. None of the people in the area seem to notice this new development, and Daryl wonders briefly if he should be making sure to look down, closer to where a normal sized dog would actually be. 

“Could work,” Daryl responds, mildly. 

“What could work?” Rick’s voice rings out from behind, nearly startling him. Daryl makes himself turn halfway around to face the other man, frowning. He’d been so focused on the farie that he’d left his back wide open. 

Glenn perks up. “We’re going to use Sophia’s dog to track her in the woods!” 

Rick glances over at the ‘dog’ contemplatively. For a second, Daryl thinks that he sees concern or maybe fear flicker over his face, but then it passes. 

“Good idea,” Rick says, slowly. Like he knows that something is wrong but won’t vocalize it. Daryl curls his hand into a fist. _Humans don’t like to talk about things that don’t make sense._ The words float through his brain, called up again from his childhood like some kind of kind of broken record, scratched and skipping. _They’re more afraid of judgement from each other than they are of monsters._

Daryl wants to rub a hand over his eyes in frustration, but doesn’t. Rick glances over at him, eyes sharp. “You taking it?” he asks, and Daryl thinks that he might hear an undertone of...something in his voice. Suspicion maybe. 

He wants to say no. 

“Fine.” 

Glenn beams at him and Rick nods once, gaze drifting away, towards the trees. He just keeps his eyes on the faire, watching it lumber over to him, mouth wide in what might be a smile. 

“He likes you!” Glenn chirps, and Daryl has never hated him more than in that moment. No one should get to be that optimistic. “I’ll go tell Carol about the plan, and see if she can give me anything of Sophia’s so you can use it to track.” 

“Fine,” Daryl says again, still watching Bunny, circling him now. It takes everything he has not to flinch away from it when it leans in to smell him. 

Glenn bounces past him, nearly tripping over his own feet, but then stops. “Hey, Daryl? Do you know that your clothes are inside out?” 

Bunny laughs, and the sound chills Daryl to the bone.


	7. Still

“Why don’t you call me...Rumpelstiltskin. I always liked that one.” 

Daryl glares and pushes his sweat-soaked hair from his eyes. “I aint’ callin’ you anything, _farie_ just keep walking.” 

It shoots Daryl a look, though he can’t really read it’s fur covered expressions well enough to tell what it’s feeling. “Fine. I’ll be Bunny then.” It laughs, and inches closer to Daryl, who side steps away. “I just thought it was fitting. An obvious alias, but appropriate for someone who...deals with children.” 

“Shut up,” Daryl nearly growls. They had been combing the woods for hours, or rather, Daryl had been. Of the few trails the farie had insisted on leading him down, none had revealed anything of worth. Daryl keeps one eye on it and the other on the landscape in front of them. The only decent thing about the day was that he didn’t have to be with any of the group and the farie at the same time again. He’s pretty sure that if he has to do that again anytime soon, he losing it. 

It’s a small comfort though, considering that the thing can probably kill him whenever it wants to. 

Daryl just keeps on looking, and makes the effort to block out the steady stream of bull that flows from the monster’s mouth. They might be incapable of outright lies, but that doesn’t mean they can’t try to jerk him around. It had happened before, too many times, and Daryl resolutely keeps his head clear and focused on the task at hand. 

“If you don’t entertain me, I will be forced to eat you,” the thing comments, sounding utterly bored. It had also somehow managed to get behind him without Daryl noticing, which he had been trying to avoid. 

Daryl spins around and points the crossbow directly at its face. “Pookas don’t eat people,” he says, because he knows that, somehow. 

It cocks its head to the side and narrows its eyes. “I might make an exception for you, _human_.” 

“Go on then, I’ll stick an arrow right between yer’ eyes,” Daryl answers with significantly more confidence than he actually feels. 

The farie looks him over and twitches its ears. Daryl notes the movement and matches it to the nervousness of a prey animal. He gestures with the bow. “Move.” 

“I was only trying to make conversation,” it says, snidely. “Should I sing instead?” 

“Just move,” Daryl answers, bone tired and scared but unwilling to show it. It goes, in front of Daryl this time, and strangely silent. Daryl counts his blessings and pushes forward, trying to make the most of the hours before the heat of the day sets in. 

He finds another abandoned house, but no signs of Sophia. Frustration building, Daryl turns and kicks over a long abandoned trash can. In the wide open space of the forest, the sound hardly echos, but Bunny casts him an unimpressed look. 

“You _do_ know that you’re wasting your time. Our time.” 

Daryl freezes, then turns to face the monster with narrowed eyes. “What.” A line of sweat rolls down his back, uncomfortable in the building heat, but he ignores it. 

The farie rolls its massive eyes. “You are wasting your time.” It enunciates slowly, as if Daryl couldn’t possibly understand. Daryl grips his crossbow tighter, letting the metal cut into his hands.

“Meaning what exactly?” he demands, pulling himself up to this full height, which doesn’t even come close to matching the farie. 

It makes a growling sound that Daryl takes for a laugh and slinks away, towards the house. “I think you know,” it says, maliciously. “I think you’ve known what has been going on at that house. In the small house. The animal-”

“The barn?” Daryl asks. “She’s in the barn?” 

Bunny jumps up onto a low hanging tree branch, holding onto it with its hind legs. “I didn’t say that.” 

Daryl moves closer, not too close, but close enough to threaten. “The other one, the man lookin’ thing with the horns-” 

“Marivious,” Bunny says, curving its mouth into a wicked smile. “Fond of children, that one.” 

Daryl blinks. “Fine. It said that Sophia is alive, but he didn’t take her. Did the farm people?” 

Bunny yawns exaggeratedly and closes its eyes. Daryl swings with the crossbow, furious, but it jerks to a stop, caught in the monster’s massive grasp. 

“Careful human,” it says, leaning forward to peer at Daryl’s face. Daryl freezes, unable to get away without letting go of the bow. “I think you’re funny, and I keep the things that I like alive, but..” It lets go, and Daryl flies backwards, landing in the dirt. 

He scrambles up immediately, heart pounding, and makes a break for the trees. Bunny doesn’t follow, Daryl knows, because if he did, Daryl never would have made it back to the farm. 

***

By the time he makes it back, dog tired and aching from running so far, it’s well past noon. He passes right by Rick and Shane, who call out to him, making his way to the barn. 

It occurs to him to invent some excuse for going over there, but the urgency overrules his more logical impulses. When he finds her, the other will be so excited they’ll probably forget all about it for a while anyway. 

He’s already half way there when he sees one of the daughters, the older one, coming his way. She calls out. “Hey! My dad doesn’t want you over there.” 

“Yeah I bet,” Daryl mutters, ignoring her. She keeps yelling and he picks up the pace, knowing that all he has to do is draw attention to the fact that there’s something wrong with the barn and the secret is blown. 

He gets to the door and pushes at it. On the other side, something pushes back. 

“Shit,” he yells, jumping back. “What the hell-” He cuts off, listening to the snarls and groans coming from inside. 

The daughter catches up to him. “I told you not to, asshole.” 

“Girl,” he says, rounding on her, confused and pissed off. “You do not want to go there with me.” 

He turns back to the doors, squinting through the cracks. Definitely walkers. He lets out a stream of curses, furious at letting himself get tricked into thinking she was in there. Of course Bunny led him back to the farm, she was probably right in the area they were searching. 

“Dammit, _dammit._ ” Daryl growls, kicking the door, which serves to excite the walkers more. Speaking of which…

He spins around and cups his hands over his mouth. “Rick! Shane!” he yells, swatting the girl away when she tries to stop him. “We got a problem over here!” 

The two men, who had already been watching from the camp, come running. “What happened?” Rick calls out, still only part way down the hill. All the yelling has attracted the attention of everyone else on the farm as well. Even Dale, who is supposedly on watch, has turned to stare at the developing scene. 

Daryl glares at the girl. “There’s walkers in the barn.” 

Shane swears and heads straight for the doors, while Rick rounds on the girl. “Maggie,” he says, evenly. “What’s the meaning of this?” 

She shifts her weight, glancing around. “It’s a family concern.” 

Shane spins, glaring. “Well it’s a concern for us too, what the hell-” 

“Shane,” Rick says, holding up a hand. Shane quiets, and goes back to examining the barn’s defenses. “Maggie, you tried to stop Daryl from seeing it, so you must have known that we’d have a problem with this.” 

She bites her lip. “You just don’t understand.” 

“Nah, we understand,” Daryl says, anger building. “We get that you’re puttin’ us all in danger!” 

Rick turns, probably to quiet Daryl like he did to Shane, but Daryl won’t have that from him, so he just turns on his heels and puts some distance between them. Then the rest of the group arrives on the scene, and things get really loud. Daryl takes off, furious at being lied to, and furious at himself for listening to the farie when he knew better. 

They end up splitting up, Shane and Andrea guarding the barn while Rick works on Hershel. Glenn, T-Dog, and the kid Jimmy are out combing the woods for Sophia one last time before true dark, while Daryl takes watch. 

It’s infuriating, sitting on top of the RV when he should be out looking. He can’t even properly explain to them why it _has_ to be him. They won’t find her, the fey will see to that. 

Frustrated, he kicks over the empty canteen, launching it off the roof. Shane had demanded that they leave tomorrow, that they abandon the search for Sophia. Daryl saw a few of the other group members leaning in his direction too. Rick had talked him into staying the night at least, but he’s going to be trouble, Daryl can see it. 

From below, Dale calls up. “You might have yelled ‘incoming’ or something.” 

Daryl doesn’t respond, and tries to ignore the sounds of Dale climbing up the ladder too. 

Dale hauls himself up and sets the canteen back down on the roof before he continues. “Something on your mind?” 

Daryl closes his eyes. _Unbelievable._

Coming to stand beside him, Dale lets out a sigh. “I wanted to thank you.” 

Daryl turns, surprised. “What?” 

“For the barn. It’s best that we know, whatever the outcome.” 

Daryl rolls his eyes. “Well, that’s very _zen_ of you and everythin’ but the fight ain’t over yet.” 

Dale hums. “By the way,” He says, trying and failing to be casual. “What happened to Sophia’s dog?” 

“Ran off.” 

“I see.” 

Daryl refuses to respond anymore, but the silence isn’t as peaceful with Dale standing there. After a few minutes, Dale decides to bother him again. “It’s a good thing you’re so...perceptive. About the barn I mean.” 

Daryl turns on him. “You got a problem, old man?”

Dale actually _puts his hands in the air_. It’s so ridiculous Daryl almost laughs. “No, no. I’m just saying, whatever it is, it’s very useful to the group.” 

He leaves, and Daryl glares him down the whole way.


	8. Freeze

Daryl wakes up, dazed and disoriented, in his tent by the big tree. It’s barely dawn, and he peers up blearily at the ceiling of his tent, trying to decide why he’s awake, when he hears another shout. He jumps up and grabs his crossbow, pleased to find that he fell asleep in his shoes again, and runs, ignoring Lori calling down to him from on top of the RV. 

He spots the group right away, gathered around the barn and fighting. They all have guns. “Idiots,” he grumbles to himself as he slows to a jog. They’re going to draw every walker in Georgia at this rate. The fight is gearing up to be a bad one though, so he keeps to his course. 

Of course no one notices him approach the group, and he rolls his eyes at the utter incompetence. For the most part, Shane is the one yelling, though Rick certainly isn’t helping by telling him to ‘calm down’ every two seconds. Scanning the perimeter, Daryl catches Glenn’s eyes and they share a brief commiserating look over the situation. 

“Listen man, lemme’ tell you something-”

“Shane, this isn’t our property!” 

“What’s going on here?” a new voice calls out, and Daryl turns to see the old man approaching, his family behind him. Rick immediately rushes over to him.

“Hershel-”

Shane keeps talking. “The damn door is about to come off the hinges, man. This entire operation is-”

“Shane!” 

“No Rick!” Shane yells, and Daryl turns to watch him. “This ends now!” He sprints towards the door. 

In the ensuing confusion, Daryl runs to get one of the shotguns from Carol, who has no business holding a gun in the first place, and gets himself into position. He didn’t have to be a genius to figure out where the situation was leading. A minute later, they’re opening fire on the walkers that come stumbling out of the open barn doors. 

It’s not difficult to take them down, bottlenecked as they are, but then she crosses the threshold and Daryl feels his blood run cold. 

“What,” he breathes, unintentionally out loud. It’s impossible. 

A few feet in front of him, Carol screams and starts running, drawing his attention. He runs after her, tackling her to the ground before she can get hurt. He holds onto her, probably too tightly, and just stares, uncomprehending as Sophia shuffles forward. 

The group has gone horribly silent except for Carol’s crying, and Daryl can hear his heart pounding in his ears. _Impossible._ All he can do is gape at her, confused and angry. There’s no way. Sophia can’t be dead, not when a farie said she was alive. 

Rick steps forward, and no one stops him. The gunshot echoes in Daryl’s ears for minutes after the fact. 

_They lied._

The fey can’t lie, but it looks like they were lying about that too. 

***

Whatever Rick said to Hershel when they went to town to find him must have worked because they come back together, with an extra person, and they stay. Daryl ignores them for the most part, spending the majority of his time up the hill by himself. 

He spends his time tending to his bow, making more arrows, and waiting. 

The Pooka will come for him, he’s sure of it. All Daryl has to do is wait, and he’ll come to either kill him or torment him. Either way Daryl intends to kill him first or go down trying. The others leave him be, smart enough not to bother him.

He barely sleeps, too riled up and angry to quiet down his mind. He lays awake at night and stares up at the stars, going over it again and again. _They lied._

He closes his eyes, and sees her body, rotted and limp on the dirty ground. Rick and Shane buried her while he took Carol away and into the RV. They sat in silence for hours, and Daryl thought about all the times he might have made that girl’s life easier. He failed her when she was alive and he failed her when she needed him most. 

The last time he ever talked to her, she had been sitting on the porch step waiting to talk to him. She looked so happy to see him, and he sent her back into the house because he was too scared to deal with it. Well he can deal with it now. 

He hears a twig crack and jerks his head up, on alert. _It’s happening,_ he thinks, his instincts telling him what he needs to know. Calm settles over him like the warmth of the sun, slowly creeping into his limbs. Daryl stands and makes his way into the woods, taking the crossbow and nothing else. The group can have the rest of his shit for all he cares. 

It doesn’t take him long to make find what he’s looking for. The trees starts to thin and he comes to a clearing with a too-wide circle of mushrooms in the center. A farie circle. Daryl walks forward with confidence, movements steady. He’s found the right place. 

“Alright!” he calls out, not giving a shit about who or what else might hear. He just wants this _done_. He’s waited his whole life. “I’m here, now come out!” 

A prickling sensation on the back of his neck. Daryl spins around, crossbow cocked, and freezes. 

“No.” 

The thing in front of him, some kind of walking tree person, has her wrapped up in its arms, asleep. Sophia. She’s unmoving. The tree hugs her tighter. “We took her,” it says in a rasping voice. 

“Sophia,” he hears himself say, “No, that was-” 

“The fat one? _Otis?_ ” Daryl turns his face to see the horned man approach him, a cruel smile curving over his sharp angled face. For a split second, Daryl just stands there, frozen. All his plans derailed. Then he moves, running forward to get to Sophia only to be jerked back by a freezing cold hand on his shoulder. He flies back, landing on the ground with a dull thud. 

There’s laughter in the trees as he struggles to get back up, but his arm is numb from the shoulder down. Daryl manages though, shifting into a crouch as the horned man, the one the Pooka called Marivious, walks around him slowly. 

He considers Daryl for a second, smirking. “Good of you to join us.” More laughter. Daryl looks around furiously, trying to see any of them, or his bow. Marivious ignores him, walking over to the tree to take Sophia from it. He holds her gently, cradled in his arms. 

Daryl tries to move again, resolving to ignore his now useless arm, but vines come up from the ground to wrap around his legs, rendering him immobile. He struggles, even though he knows that he won’t get free. Grunting he reaches down to rip the vines and roots off with his fingernail if he has to, but a small and gentle hand stops him. He jerks away from it, glaring, then freezes. 

It’s a small, dark haired, _human_ girl. She smiles at him and then runs over to the tree, who reaches down for her. Daryl feels his mouth go dry. _Valerie Adams._ The girl from the woods the day he passed out. The one who went missing all those years ago from his town. 

She looks the same as she did the day Daryl saw her twenty years ago. The exact same, bruise on her eye and all. Daryl makes himself look away from her and back to Sophia, who is still asleep. “You replaced her,” he says, anger making his voice shake. “You changed her out for one of those _things_.” 

Tittering in the trees, but this time Daryl ignores them, focusing on Marivious, who tilts his head. “Which one?” he asks, smirking. It seems to be his default expression. 

“Both,” Daryl growls, pulling against the vines again. “You _steal_ children!” Something hits him from the back, but he can’t twist far enough to see what it was. Another vine grabs his good arm, rendering him motionless. He turns back to glare and finds Marivious much closer to him, close enough to touch. Maybe close enough to bite. 

“I take children that get left behind.” 

“She wasn’t left,” Daryl says, nodding to Sophia. “I was-”

He leans away. “Oh _you_ were? Then how did she end up in the woods?” 

“There was a herd! The walkers-” 

“There is always something.” Marivious says, lip curling. Then he spits in Daryl’s face. 

Shock runs through him and he screams, throwing himself forward against the vines. Nothing gives. Daryl is shaking, this isn’t working, he tries to think. “You don’ care about her. This all some kinda’ game to you!” 

Something lands on his shoulder with a soft tinkling laugh. Tiny hand caress his face. Daryl flinches away, but he’s so tightly restrained he can’t manage much movement. “Everything is a game,” it says, directly into his ear. “Don’t you remember when we used to play games?” 

Marivious hisses, showing teeth, and the small thing leaves Daryl’s shoulder. There’s an itching sensation where it had been standing, but he can’t reach to touch it. He feels dizzy, sick. The fear is catching up to him, and he forces it back down. 

“If you don’t let me out I’ll kill you. I will track you down,” Daryl says, though he knows as well as they do that it’s an empty threat. “I swear I’ll-” 

“No,” Marivious drawls. “You will do no such thing, but if you don’t stop your useless posturing I won’t kill you.” 

Daryl narrows his eyes. “What the hell are you-” A blunt force hits his back again, sending a shock through him that has nowhere to go. 

“I won’t kill you,” Marivious continues as though nothing had happened. “I’ll just leave you there, tied up. The...walkers? That was what you called them wasn’t it? They’ll be the ones to deal with you.” 

It’s a miracle that Daryl doesn’t throw up. He forces his attention back to Sophia. There had to be a way. He tries to remember what the fey like. Killing, games, deals. 

“I’ll make a deal with you,” he says, doing his best to keep his tone relatively even. The anger can’t help him now. 

Laughter. Daryl narrows his eyes and stares at Sophia, still sleeping. The itching on the arm is spreading down and up at the same time. 

“A deal!” Marivious’ laugh is dark and deep. “But you have nothing!” 

Daryl sucks in a breath, heart hammering. His throat is so dry the words nearly stick in his throat. “You can have me.” The laughter only increases. 

“You?” Marivious smiles, eyes gleaming. “No. Why ever would we want you? We didn’t take you before now did we? You and that mother of yours.” For a moment, Daryl is too confused to do anything more than stare. It’s an obvious attempt at a distraction, so seductive in its simplicity. 

His mother burned to death by her own bad habits, or by _them?_ An old anger resurfaces in Daryl, pointed and hot and finally with a target within reach but he forces it away. She’s dead, but Sophia is still alive. 

Marivious is coming towards him, moving so steadily he seems to be floating. He bends at the waist to look Daryl in the eye. “Do you really want her back, here, in this hell?” Daryl opens his mouth to respond but he’s cut off by a sharp jab in the back. “She’s already becoming more like us. It’s better for her this way.” 

“No,” Daryl gasps out, feeling the warmth spread across his back. “No-” 

The vines loosen, letting him fall to the ground. He tries to scramble up, but with his deadened arm he only makes it as far as his knees before something pushes him back down. He lands with a groan, pain radiating up from a single red hot point on his back. Even the itching is getting worse. It’s going to kill him, he knows it. 

“Here,” Marivious’ voice drifts over to him, and tucks something into his pocket. “Why don’t you have this. Young Sophia has no use for it.” 

Daryl growls, heaving himself up with his one good arm in time to see them fade away. “No,” he breathes, jumping to his feet. “No!” 

But his legs give out, sending him crashing to the ground again. The itching is settling into a dark numbness that he can’t shake off. “Get up you bitch,” he mutters to himself, rolling onto his side. the words are slurred though, Daryl can hear himself fading away. 

“Sophia...” 

Then the numbness reaches his face and he blacks out.


	9. Never Over

Voices come over him in waves, but leave him just as quickly. Some of them make it through. Most don’t. 

Daryl comes to gradually, gaining control over his body inch by inch. He finds that he can twitch his hand or turn his head without remembering what it means to do these things. His awareness come later. 

Dull voices, but this time, meaning. 

“He’s been asleep for too long.” 

“What do you think we should do Rick? There’s nothing out here for him.” 

“We _need_ him.” 

“Do we?” 

He can’t place the voices, but Daryl feels anger, which is familiar and comfortable so he hangs onto it. He tries but he can’t coordinate his mind and body well enough to respond. He slips back into the darkness. 

When he comes back, Dale is hovering over him with a frown on his face. “Ugh.” Daryl turns away, realizing a second later that he has regained the ability to move. He sits up, his vision blurring at the sudden shift from horizontal to vertical for a second but he manages to hold himself relatively steady. “Shit, what-” He stops, remembering what happened with a jolt. 

Dale raises an eyebrow. “You went missing for a while.” 

“How long’s a while?” Daryl asks, rubbing at his arm, which is still a bit numb but thankfully useable. 

“Two days.” 

Daryl stares at him, unsure of what to say. They’ll want an explanation of course but what can he say? Sometimes farie time stretches out longer than normal human time? This has happened to him before so don’t worry about it? He shrugs. “Shit.” 

“Shit is right.” Dale laughs. “What happened son?” 

“Dunno,” Daryl says, not meeting his eyes. Instead he looks around and notices that he’s in one the tents, still on the farm. “Must have fallen or somethin’ again. I was pissed off and went hunting.” 

Dale gives him a long look. “I see. Well it’s good we found you.” 

“Yeah,” Daryl mutters, starting to push himself up. “Is Carol around?” 

“She’s probably still in the RV,” Dale says, still looking at him. “I think Rick wanted to see you when you woke up though.” 

“Fine,” Daryl calls over his shoulder. He stumbles out into the night air, cooler than it was even a week ago. Winter is coming, and they’re going to need a plan for that. He takes a moment to steady himself, getting shot up with farie magic shit and two days on laying down didn’t do his muscles any good. 

“Oh and Daryl?” Dale calls out, and Daryl turns reluctantly. 

“Yeah?”

Dale holds up the rock Marivious had given back to him. “Don’t forget your fairy stone.” He tosses it underhand but Daryl almost forgets to catch it, jerking forward at the last second. Dale smiles at him. “Wasn’t that Sophia’s?” he asks gently. “Did you give it to her?” 

Daryl nods, narrowing his eyes. _Fairy stone?_ “So what if I did? Found it in the woods.” 

Dale holds up his hands. “No I think it was a nice thought, and it’s sweet that you hung onto to,” Dale says, and Daryl snorts, ready to be done with this, with everything. Dale doesn’t shut up. “My wife had a fairy stone too, what’s the story? You’re supposed to be able to see the little fairies through it?” 

Daryl blinks. “Fuck if I know,” he says slowly, turning the stone over and over in his hand. “Don’t matter anyway, that shit aint real.” 

“I know,” Dale says, shaking his head. “But sometimes it’s nice to let a little girl pretend right?” 

Daryl frowns, thinking of curved horns and gaping mouths full of sharp teeth, his hand going to his shoulder again without his permission. “Whatever.” He turns to go, and feels Dale’s eyes on his the entire way to the RV. 

Nothing much has changed at camp in the few days he’d been gone. In fact, Daryl can’t help but notice that they seem to be getting along just fine without him. Rick is nowhere to be seen, but he spots Lori skittering off around the side of the house, presumably to go and get him. Daryl snorts. Let her. Some of the other group members make an effort to talk to him, but most keep their distance, eying him warily. Only Glenn, persistent as always, follows him for more than a few feet before he gives up at the entrance of the RV. 

“Ok well,” Glenn breathes, doing that irritating thing where he keeps trying to meet Daryl’s eyes no matter how long Daryl avoids his gaze. “I’ll let the others know that you’re feeling better then. Oh and, by the way, Sophia’s dog ran off. We haven’t seen him.” 

Daryl just grunts, unsurprised, watching the kid run off. Seeing him and trying to be normal after the shit that went down in the clearing is just plain bizarre. 

Carol jumps a bit when he walks through the door, but she doesn’t get up. The dark circles under her eyes are even worse than they were when he left. “I didn’t know you were up.” 

Daryl shrugs. “Jus’ woke up.” 

“I was worried about you,” she says, but she’s staring out of the window and at Sophia’s little grave, next to Otis. Daryl just nods, leaning against the wall. It’s a nice enough grave, there are flowers, and he can see that Carol has placed her doll by the stones, it’s a nice gesture but Daryl knows it’s all a lie. 

He stares at it and wonders what they would find if they dug up the body. A piece of wood? Maybe it was another little dead girl. It had to have been a powerful piece of magic to fool Daryl’s sight. Daryl lets his eyes drift shut, the rock with the natural hole still clenched in his hand. He doesn’t care. 

After a while, Carol speaks. “I know-” Carol stops to wipe at her face. “I know that the thing that came out of the barn wasn’t Sophia.” 

Daryl opens his eyes, mouth set in a hard line. The rock in his hand is heavy, and he itches to either give it to her or throw it through the window, he isn’t sure which. 

_Do you really want her back, here, in this hell?_

“Carol,” he finally manages, the words threatening to stick in his throat. 

_It’s better for her this way._

She looks back at him, her eyes sharp in spite of the tears. Daryl can’t bring himself to meet her eyes. “I- I wanted to-” 

“What’s that?” She points to the rock with a thin smile. “Another Cherokee legend?” 

Daryl looks down at it, plain and innocuous looking in his hand. “Nah. It’s nothing.” He reaches around to drop it into his back pocket, and tries to forget that it’s there. 

***

After the farm falls apart the winter drives them all hard. The cold bites down to their skin and they’re haunted by the ghosts of Dale, Shane, Andrea, and everyone else they’d left behind. The group is forced to spend the harsher months out in the open most of the time, and despite their vulnerable position Daryl doesn’t see the fey once. They’ve faded into the background again, like they were never there. Of all feelings, Daryl hates waiting for something to come for you the worst. These are the worst months of Daryl’s life. 

Living in the prison is easier, but the guilt still eats away at him every day. 

He still goes out into the woods, more and more now, and the feeling of being watched fades over time. The closest he comes to them is finding one ring of stones with the message ‘walls of iron always bite’ written in flowers. Daryl leaves it be, and tries not to think about the rock with the natural hole he has still stashed under his bed. 

But that was weeks ago, and he has more pressing concerns now. 

“How about this little brother?” Merle calls out, probably too loudly for the area, holding up a dead rabbit by the ears with his one good hand, blood glinting off the blade attached to his other wrist. “Do I still got it or what?” 

“We’ll see,” Daryl calls back mildly, squinting at the dull tracks. Even with the Governor and Woodbury out there as a looming threat, bigger and bigger every day, they still have to eat. He doesn’t say anything else, hasn’t really said much to Merle since they’d found him and Merle has returned to favor in terms of subjects that matter. It’s almost like being home again.

Suddenly Daryl sees what he’s looking for and moves, all action, no thought. Instinct. He gets his own rabbit for his trouble and holds it up with a grin. “What was that you were-” 

“Shh-” Merle cuts him off with a raised hand. “Did’ya hear that?” 

Daryl shuts up and raises his bow, scanning the trees. Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees a flash of light colored movement. Too fast to be a walker, too small to be an adult, too loud to be an animal. Daryl’s heart pounds. 

“Nah.” He avoids Merle’s eyes. “Let’s get back.” 

“Fine,” Merle responds, pushing on ahead. “Prolly’ won’t find much else anyway.” 

They get back to the prison in minutes, but every second send a strike of fear down Daryl’s spine. He tries to stay in denial. Maybe he didn’t see anything. It isn’t until they’re back behind the fences and walls that Daryl can even begin to relax. 

“Ugh.” Merle tosses his rabbit and the handful of squirrels they’d tagged down on the cutting table in one of the lesser used cell blocks. “Lets get someone else to deal with this shit. I feel like a nap.”

Daryl flicks his eyes up to him briefly, amused in spite of himself. “Go on then you lazy ass.” 

Merle punches him in the arm but sits, grabbing one of the rabbits and the good knife. “An’ let you spread lies about my character? Nah. Jus’ never done this part with one hand.” 

“Better put yer’ mind to it then,” Daryl says, knowing that his brother won’t take sympathy. “Bet I can finish all these squirrels before you do one rabbit.” 

Merle laughs. “I’ll take those odds little brother.” 

Despite their relatively safe position Daryl can’t help but glance at the window every few seconds, half expecting to see some monster hanging from the bars even if it burned the freak’s hands. He half expects to see Bunny. Or the little girl, Valerie. He doesn’t think about the other one. 

“You let me win?” Merle asks, bringing Daryl out of his trance. He holding a freshly skinned rabbit while Daryl has still only done one squirrel. 

“Uh-”

“Or is it them?” 

Daryl looks up, startled. “What?”

Merle rolls his eyes, mouth set in a hard line. “You know what.” He reaches around to his left back pocket, an awkward maneuver for his right hand, but manages to pull out the rock with the natural hole. The rock which is supposed to be under Daryl’s bed, stuffed in an old sweatshirt. 

Daryl makes a grab for it, realizing a second too late that he probably should have pretended not to know what it was. Merle jerks it out of his grasp though, like he used to do all the time when they were kids, but this time he’s not smiling. 

“Mom had one of these,” Merle says, flipping it over in his hand, his tone dangerous. “I took it once and went out in the backyard, looked through the hole.” He shakes his head. Daryl grinds his teeth together. “We aint’ supposed to be messing around with this shit little brother.” 

“I’m not,” Daryl says sharply. “You think I want this shit? I didn’t ask for this.” 

Merle shrugs, not looking at Daryl. “Fuck if I know. All I know is that people who mess with this end up dead,” he says, and pushes away from the table, dropping the rock to the table with a clatter. Daryl flinches at the sound. 

After a minute of staring at the empty doorway like an idiot, he goes back to his kills, trying to clear his mind. He doesn’t touch the rock until he hears someone coming, shoving it into his vest pocket instead of throwing it through the window like he has half a mind to do. 

“Hey Daryl,” Rick says, sitting down at the table with a look of relief. He points to the kills. “Those look great. Thanks for this, I don’t know what we’d do without you.”

“Live off canned beans probably,” Daryl says, keeping his eyes on his work, his knuckles stark white on the knife. 

Rick laughs, sounding far too tired. “Yeah you’re probably right.” He doesn’t say anything else but he also doesn’t leave, and it isn’t like Rick to hover. Daryl finishes up getting the meat dressed and wrapped. He’s is just about to ask him what crawled up his ass when Rick runs a hand over his eyes. “I saw her again.” 

“Lori?” 

“No.” Rick makes a face. “Sophia. Three days ago when I was patrolling.” 

Daryl freezes. “Why’r you-”

“Because you were closest to her and I just...I don’t know. I can’t say anything to Carol obviously. And I can’t show weakness in front of the others like this.” Rick cards a hand through his hair, looking like he’s about to pull it out. “I know she’s dead, but it’s like she’s haunting me.” 

“Wasn’t nothing we could do,” Daryl says, avoiding Rick’s eyes. Nothing we _should_ do.

“Yeah.” Rick leans back. “It’s fucked up because I see this other little girl too, dark hair with a black eye, and I don’t who who she is but...she’s out there. I just wish there was something I could do but-” 

Daryl stands up, heart pounding again. “Well you can’t. Jus’ take care of the kids we have here.” 

Rick look up at him. “Yeah, you’re right.” He stands and clasps Daryl’s shoulder briefly before heading for the door again. “Thanks man, you help me see straight.” 

Daryl curls a hand over the rock in his pocket as he watches Rick leave, so guilty he’s afraid he’ll be sick. Panic grips him, he feels cold and hot at the same time. His arm feels like a dead weight again, like it did months ago. Daryl sits down briefly, head in his hands, before he jumps back up, heading for the fields. 

She’s there, like he knew she would be. It’s laundry day. 

“Carol,” he says, but he can’t continue, his throat closes up. 

She turns, clearly surprised. “Hey.” Then she frowns when he doesn’t respond. 

Daryl knows he must look insane. “Hey,” he finally manages. 

Carol frowns. “What-”

Daryl digs the rock with the natural hole out of his pocket before he changes his mind, shoving it at her. “Here.” 

She takes it, turning it over in her hand. “Isn’t this-” 

“I need to tell you something.” 

***

Later, on charred land that used to be a farm, children play surrounded by monsters, unaware or uncaring of the dead walking through the trees. Protected. Forgetful. 

“I like that. That’s pretty,” a dark haired girl says to a light haired one. They’re playing near some piles of stones, their protectors all around them, watching them.

The light haired one hums, holding the thing in her hands. “I found it.” It’s not pretty, it’s filthy. A tiny grass farie lands on it and she laughs, trying to shake her off. 

“Why make a small person for a toy when you can have real person toys?” the dark haired girl asks. 

The light haired girl flips the thing around. “I don’t know.” There are markings on the doll’s foot. Writing. 

_Sophia_

Sophia blinks, remembering.


End file.
